


away from the shore

by kaalee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Hogwarts Era, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-01
Updated: 2007-07-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 14:57:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10789014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaalee/pseuds/kaalee
Summary: Dean has never been a great fan of kissing; he's always wondered what the fuss was about. [Seamus Finnigan/Dean Thomas]





	away from the shore

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

  
Author's notes: Written for the gloriously talented [](http://harkskar.livejournal.com/profile)[**harkskar**](http://harkskar.livejournal.com/) ♥ I started this way back in September, but little things kept tripping me up. It was inspired by [this starkly beautiful drawing](http://harkskar.livejournal.com/9312.html) of hers. Many thanks to [](http://danijo1.livejournal.com/profile)[**danijo1**](http://danijo1.livejournal.com/), [](http://oconel.livejournal.com/profile)[**oconel**](http://oconel.livejournal.com/), & [](http://slashfairy.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://slashfairy.livejournal.com/)**slashfairy** for the helpful beta work.  


* * *

**away from the shore**   
**seamus/dean ~ pg13 ~ 2600 words**

 

::

 

Amidst the lurid floral wallpaper lining the walls of the staircase leading to the second floor, photographs and frames crowd, weaving their way like ivy around the faded blossoms. Dean has always been mesmerized by their varied ages; he's convinced some are as old as when the first photographs were invented. He's spent hours examining them over his years visiting Seamus's house.

It's endeared him to Mrs. Finnigan. She's only too happy to tell him stories about each photograph, including the frame and where that came from. Her stories are like Seamus's: long and detailed, but while hers always seem to be fraught with inescapable religious lessons, Seamus's always get him into trouble.

The mix of Muggle and Wizard photos are rather haphazard, actually; Mrs. Finnigan frowns when mentioning many of the people in her husband's family and offers many off-colour comments. But, really, they don't look like criminals to him.

There's one hidden image that everyone seems to have forgotten about. Naturally, that's the one that Dean finds most fascinating. It's unmoving, two figures framed by hanging chiffon, so only their faces are visible, their lips touching in the barest of kisses. He's quite certain it must be a wedding photograph, otherwise, why would it be up on the wall? The figures are nondescript enough so that he can't tell whether they're male or female. Dean looks at that picture a lot. He seeks it out whenever he's on the stairs, would touch it if that didn't seem a bit mad. It doesn't make sense to him why it affects him so.

There isn't even any tongue.

Dean has been kissed. By quite a good number of people, thank you very much, but he's certain he's never looked like the people in that photograph. There appears to be such longing, such contentment on their faces that he just doesn’t understand.

Kissing has been around for hundreds of years, alright, but he just doesn't understand what the fuss is all about.

::  


 

"Race you!" Seamus whoops, running toward the shore in a few short bounds. He splashes into the water and tears off his shirt with a grin. "Water's great!" he calls back.  
  
Dean watches Seamus's shirt come to rest on the bank. Moonlight shines behind him and highlights his hair with an almost silver glow. _Ethereal,_ Dean's mind says, _otherworldly_.  
  
"Bloody git," Seamus calls from the waist-deep water, "You're not playing possum are you? If you make me swim alone, I'm making you sleep in the attic!"  
  
Dean grins. It has been so damn hot this summer and the breeze through Seamus's third floor window is the only thing that makes sleeping bearable. Seamus's da won't let them use cooling charms in the house; he says they're tell-tale signs of wizardry that he'd rather avoid.  
  
Seamus's mam had just rolled her eyes and mentioned that there were some _other_ things she'd rather avoid as well, but Seamus had pulled Dean out of there before they'd started fighting again.  
  
"Oi, shut it," Dean calls back. Seamus turns to look out over the pond and grows silent. There is a path of moonlight shining across the surface of the water and Dean wonders oddly whether he might be able to walk on top of it.  
  
Seamus turns back to look at him and cocks his head, "Coming?"  
  
"Yeah," Dean says and takes off his shirt. He walks slowly down the bank. When his feet hit the water, he speeds up, breaking the surface with shiny splashes as he runs awkwardly through the water. He is nearly breathless when he reaches Seamus, his chest tightens when Seamus turns to him with a wet smile.  
  
Seamus smiles crookedly before turning back to look across the water. Dean turns too and sucks in his breath. There is a deer lit only around the edges standing on the shore about forty metres from them. Nearly five full breaths later, Dean is startled by something brushing his foot. He jumps and Seamus glances at him, "What's up, mate?"  
  
"Something touched my foot."  
  
"Probably just an eel."  
  
Dean almost loses his balance, "An eel?"  
  
Seamus laughs and punches him lightly in the shoulder, "Nah, ain't much livin' in this pond no more. Just some old fish. Didn't mean to scare you."  
  
"I wasn't scared."  
  
"'Course not."  
  
Dean glares at him for a moment and Seamus stares back, unblinking. He licks his lip, then opens and closes his mouth with a deep breath. Letting his eyes flick away momentarily, Dean says, "The deer's gone."  
  
Seamus is still watching him, his eyes focused on Dean's lips.  
  
"Seamus," Dean says, his voice low, "I-"  
  
"Well, if you hadn't made so much noise, it wouldn't have got scared away."  
  
Dean looks at Seamus curiously. That response sounded half-hearted to him, scripted almost.  
  
And Seamus won't stop _watching_ him.  
  
Dean wonders what would happen if time stretched out eternally, if they didn’t have places to be, people that expected them, people that would wonder... He thinks everyone should have a sort of _'Go again'_ card that they can use when there is something that they desperately want to do, something they've thought about both late at night when it makes sense and in the full light of day when it's the last appropriate thing anyone should be thinking.  
  
Seamus licks his lips again and Dean tries to pull his eyes away, but can't. He's caught, really. He might call it frozen if it wasn't so bloody _hot._ Dean suddenly can't tell why they are so much closer than before or why he can make out the moonlight shining a glistening path across Seamus's lips.  
  
Dean opens his mouth, parts his own lips just a bit, thinking he might not need that _'Go again'_ card after all, when Seamus suddenly splashes him, water spraying in huge droplets as Seamus turns and takes off, diving into the water gracefully and swimming away.  
  
Dean dives under the water, anxious to catch up with Seamus, but his pockets fill with water, pulling him back. He feels sluggish, weighed down.  
  
"How in the hell do you swim that fast with your trousers on?" Dean calls when Seamus's head breaks the surface.  
  
Seamus rises out of the water and points to a heap on the bank. "Took 'em off," he shouts, wiggling his hips and lowering the waistband of his boxers until Dean can see his untanned bum.   
  
"Only an Irishman would be proud of an arse so white it shines in the moonlight," Dean says, shaking his head and reaching down to pull his trousers off carefully.  
  
Seamus disappears under the water for a moment, rising and spitting a jet of water, then grins before turning and wagging his bum again, tossing his sodden boxers so that they land in the shallow water with a splash.  
  
"Got to be proud of somethin', mate!" he calls back.  
  
Shaking his head again, Dean gets a wicked grin and reaches down to pull his own boxers off, tossing them overhead toward the bank. He hears a splash behind him and snickers, turning and wagging his own arse at Seamus. He dives underwater then, amazed at the feeling of the cool liquid sliding over his skin. It's both freeing and disconcerting all at once.  
  
When he gets to Seamus, they stand together, looking across the pond in companionable silence. There are few people that Dean can stand in silence with, and Seamus is one of them. It isn't often they have it, what with Seamus running his mouth most of the day and night, but it is notable when it happens. He smiles to himself, then starts suddenly when something brushes his hip.  
  
Seamus presses his lips together and stares straight ahead, obviously trying not to laugh. Dean frowns. The git did it intentionally. He moves his foot over toward Seamus, first his toes, then heel, then toes again, angling them until he can tell he is just about at Seamus's ankle. He counts to three, then hooks his foot around Seamus's ankle and pulls it up sharply so Seamus loses his balance and falls arse over tea kettle into the water.  
  
Seamus rises, splashing and lunging at Dean. He hits him full in the stomach and then tears toward the shore. Dean takes off after him, tripping clumsily through the water until he is close enough to grab Seamus's hand. He jerks hard, but then his foot catches an underwater plant and he loses his footing, falling into the water next to Seamus and swallowing up a lungful.  
  
He coughs roughly, rising onto all fours. Seamus slaps him on the back and after a few agonizing seconds, Dean can finally breathe again. He flops down into the shallow water next to Seamus -- too close probably, their knees are touching -- and they look at each other for a moment.  
  
"I reckon I'm gonna be in deep trouble you keep lookin' at me like that."  
  
"Why?" Dean says, perplexed. How can Seamus tell what he's thinking when he isn't even sure himself?  
  
"Because I'm gonna splash you again to wipe that weird look off your face."  
  
"Why would you be in trouble?"  
  
"You kiddin' me?" Seamus says, "I know better than to piss you off. Last guy that did that you knocked clear to the ground. I may be scrappy, but I know better than to tangle with someone twice my size."  
  
Dean smirks, "So you have been looking at me in the shower, then? Finally able to admit who has the bigger--"  
  
"Oh, shut it, git."  
  
"Wanker."  
  
The silence stretches out between them again. Dean thinks about silence, thinks of unspoken words that you aren't supposed to say, lest you want a broken nose to go with the egg already on your face from your thoughts. He thinks about sitting naked in shallow, less than murky water with your best mate in the middle of the night. It doesn't seem as strange as he might have thought.  
  
"So, how many people you kissed, apart from Ginny?" Seamus asks.  
  
Dean thinks about that now, too. For all their late night talk about sex, they'd never talked all that much about what they'd done themselves. Sure, Seamus has always seemed to know more than anyone, but Dean had never really wondered how he'd actually learned it all. Suddenly, he is really, really curious. "A couple," he says finally.  
  
"Anyone I know?"  
  
"Mandy Brocklehurst. Hermione. A bl-"  
  
" _Hermione?_ "  
  
"Yeah," Dean says. "It was a dare. Long time ago. I can barely remember really. I never told Ron because I figured he'd probably try to twist my nuts off."  
  
Seamus nods sympathetically. "That all?"  
  
Dean shakes his head. "Bloke from church," he says, then blanches. He hadn't really meant to-- oh, bugger it all. "Mum used to make me go, but I'd skive off the service and hang out under one of the awnings behind the church. Bloke that was a few years older used to sit out there, too. The church was across the street from a ladies store; we used to squint to see if we could catch glimpses of them in their knickers. Once, he told me about a time he'd got his hand up one bird's skirt, into her knickers, and she was so squishy-wet, he'd said." Dean swallows. He can't believe he's telling this story, but now he can't stop. "When he was done telling me the story, he kissed me real hard, rubbing his hand over my dick and breathing all over me. Then he stopped and beat the tar outta me, saying if I ever said anything he'd kill me." Dean stares straight ahead, the memory of everything heavy in his mind. After that, he'd _really_ never understood what the fuss was about.  
  
Seamus lets out a breath, a slow " _phhwoargh_ " that Dean can't read.  
  
The silence this time is weighted, as though Seamus is turning it over in his mind, testing it. Dean tries not to let his own mind entertain what he is really imagining. That would be--  
  
Well, it would be too embarrassing. Maybe.  
  
"I ain't never kissed anyone," Seamus says finally.  
  
That surprises him. "Really?" For all his talk, Seamus is the least experienced of all of them?  
  
"Yeah. 'cept Lavender one time, but that wasn't a proper kiss."  
  
"It wasn't?"  
  
"Not really."  
  
Dean looks at him strangely.  
  
"No tongue," Seamus explains.  
  
"Oh." And there it is. That feeling courses through him again like there is something that neither of them is talking about.  
  
"What was it like?" Seamus asks. He's looking down and Dean can see him twisting his fingers against each other in the water. It looks almost unconscious.  
  
"To be honest," Dean lets out a harsh laugh. "It was bloody horrible."  
  
"No!"  
  
"It was. Hermione bit my lip, and Mandy couldn't see, and Ginny used to push so hard against me, I thought she was trying to fit inside my clothes with me. That bloke from church felt like he was trying to eat my face off."  
  
Seamus laughs aloud and the moment evaporates. They're best mates again and there is nothing between them.  
  
Except that there is. And they might not be best mates any more.  
  
Not if... god, not if--  
  
Dean can't focus his thoughts too well, and he's not even sure he wants to right now. There's a shift when Seamus looks over at him this time and Dean can't tell if he's holding his breath or if the air has just stopped flowing around him.  
  
"What do you reckon all the fuss is about, then?" Seamus says, his voice even.  
  
"Dunno."  
  
"You, uh-- do you--"  
  
"What?" Dean says above the blood churning a dizzying rush through his ears. He's afraid what Seamus is asking is completely different than what he thinks.  
  
"We could--"  
  
Dean nods slightly. He's frozen to the spot again and his throat has long dried out.  
  
"We could... _try?_ "  
  
A rush of gratitude fills him and Dean moves first, reaching for the back of Seamus's head and pulling their faces into line. There's a brief moment when he's worried that Seamus is going to slug him like the bloke from church, but Seamus just slides forward slightly and...  
  
And.  
  
And, _oh--_  
  
Then they _are_ kissing. Seamus opens his mouth around Dean's upper lip and he can feel something prickle all the way down the back of his neck and into his knees. Then they're kissing and a breeze moves over Dean's skin like a wave. Seamus's quiet breaths sound really good in his ears. His throat doesn't dry the way he's always expected it to, so this time Dean opens his own mouth.  
  
Then they're kissing and Seamus's tongue brushes his own lightly. Finally, Dean can feel a kiss with more of his senses than just fear. Seamus moves a bit, touches Dean's hip lightly in the water, and Dean closes his eyes and keeps going. They alternate between gentle slips of lip over lip and rough, bruising pushes where teeth bang their lips. Both varieties are so intensely exciting that he can barely think. With a tentative movement, Dean tightens his fingers at the base of Seamus's hair, pushing at the muscles there and marveling at the sleek feeling. Everything in the world could fade away at this moment and Dean would happily fall into an eternity of nothing but this kiss.  
  
Because, god, it just _is._  
  
They're kissing, and time floats away on the waves that seem to move away from the shore, and Dean finally -- _finally_ \-- knows what the fuss is about.  
  


::  


  
  
~thank you so much for reading! ♥


End file.
